Customer Reviews

GoVideo ARC5.0 Rave-MP 5GB MP3 Player (Silver)

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(14)

 

 

I picked up the 2.5 gb version of this Rave MP3 player this past weekend and have been VERY impressed with its capabilities.

The smaller version cost me $159 (before a $20 mail in rebate) and - having owned a number of MP3 players previously (Muvo, Lyra, etc.) - I have always found something lacking. This particular unit's manufacturer seems to have listened to consumer's complaints before releasing the model, because it really is a top line product.

It works right out of the package - you can actually plug it in and listen and sync items from your computer immediately, although you'll have to wait a full five hours initially before you can get an 8 to 10 hour battery life as a stand alone device.

What I REALLY like about this unit is that it syncs flawlessly with Windows Media Player, Version 10. You simply plug it in - no software needed - with the supplied USB cable...and then you open Windows Media Player and use the pull down menu to sync items to the Rave player. You can have it do it automatically, or you can do it manually.

And yes - it works with stuff that you've downloaded from MSN music...or Rhapsody...or Napster. Very few MP3 players have the capability to do that with multiple music sources.

The sound clarity is fine, although I would suggest you invest in a better pair of ear buds. The supplied ones work ok, but there are much better units (try the Sony Fontopia series) available for around $25.00.

The radio tuner works as advertised...and you can store your favorite radio stations. All in all, a FINE unit and well worth your hard earned dollars.

The Rave Arc mp3 player is cheap but still not worth it. In fact, I can't think of any price point where it would be worth it. Maybe whatever an ugly paperweight costs...

The functionality is lacking, for example, you can't organize songs into lists unless you rename the album in the mp3 metadata to specify a list (I'd recommend ID3-renamer for this, by the way). Most users won't be able to figure this out.

The biggest problem is the battery. Mine worked fine for 95 days (until 5 days after the warranty expired), but the battery life suddenly dropped to approx 1 hour. I called Go Video and their parts department was closed for nearly a month, but they assured me that I just needed to buy a new battery. They said 1 in 100 batteries had a "fabric" problem.

After about a month, their new parts department opened (panurgyOem.com) which is an outsourced operation which I suspect is some guy in his living room. I left messages and emailed for a month (long distance, of course, since there's no toll free number), but they never called or emailed back. Go Video kept saying that it wasn't their problem now that they've outsourced their parts department. I finally got through to the parts department and they told me that the battery is not replaceable. When I started to question them, they hung up on me.

I called Go Video again and they said there was nothing they could do since the parts are outsourced. They suggested that I bring the old battery to Radio Shack to see if they have one that will work.

All in all, this is probably the worst product I ever bought manufactured by the worst company that I've ever dealt with.

If you can get one for $5 it may be worth it since I'll give you $10 for the battery... Otherwise it's not worth it.

I bought the 2.5 ARC player in March 2005. The second day it froze on me as I was listening to the FM tuner. The sound was not very good, and I had to pull the headphone jack out just a bit from the player so that the sound would not be muffled. The player worked fine until January. As I was jogging, it just stopped playing and turned off. A little spider looking graphic came on the screen and a face with three x's and a sad face came on, too. I contacted RaveMP about it, and they gave me an SA# to use to return the player. They told me it would take about 2 weeks after they received it to repair it. In MARCH I still had not received any word on the status of my player. I e-mailed Rave and I received a response from a customer service rep that their company was going through some changes and that repairs were taking about 4-5 weeks in order to improve customer service. (How does taking longer to fix somehing improve customer service?!?!?!) Finally, last week, after getting terrible automated responses, I looked up GoVideo in Scottsdale, AZ, and I called their number directly. I had to leave a voice-mail (a vioce mail!) and they called me back 2 days later. The guy said that basically GoVideo is going out of business and that they are not going to take any responsibility for fixing my player. He e-mailed me a company letter basically stating that GoVideo is dafaulting on all equipment repairs and is asking customers to contact the merchant from whom they bought the player. I contacted my merchant who of course said they had no responsibility anymore and that it was the responsibilty of the manufacturer to fix it. I was very upset! I mean I paid $150 for a piece of junk!!!! GoVideo is a fraud of a company. Do NOT ever buy anything from this company!!!!!!!

Disregard the review below. This unit turned into a piece of garbage just after I wrote this and it is now sitting in a landfill.

Thank you govideo and rave-mp for being a horrible company!

I bought this on eBay for $160 after shipping. My wife and I have used this mainly while working out at the gym and it would be great for people who are active and want to bring their music with them. The sound quality isn't the best, especially with the ear-bud headphones provided, but you can mess with the equalizer so that if you get it just right, the sound is pretty good on better headphones.

The mp3 player works fine with XP and Windows Media player 9 or later, but the one beef I have is that it takes forever to update the library if you add or edit files on the player. Rave-MP doesn't support Windows playlist features yet, but they emailed me and said that a firmware update in January would add the playlist option. It's January 24th and I still haven't seen the firmware update, so they have a week until I start bugging them again.

This player takes absolutely forever to power up. You hit the power button and then watch the Rave MP screen for probably 15+ seconds. It's really annoying in you're in a hurry.

I haven't needed to use the voice recorder so I haven't yet but I'm sure if I were an investigative reporter I would love it. Or if I liked to record voice memos for myself I guess. The FM tuner is nice to have but if you want to record from the radio, the bitrate is really low so it'd only be good if you wanted to hear the name of a song or if you got lucky and won something from the radio station and wanted to record the joyous moment. Other than recording the FM tuner is great for just listening to the radio.

Battery life could be better but what can you do, it's an integrated battery I guess. Battery life is around the low side of the projected life or about 8hrs I'd say. I do wonder though how much a replacement battery would cost in a unit like this when it decides to stop charging in a few years or who-know-how-long.

All-in-all, I've enjoyed having this mp3 player. If you have to have the best sound available, I would pass on this unit, otherwise it's pretty good and you can find it for super cheap usually on eBay. I've seen them for as low as $130 there. Holy cheap mp3 player Batman!

Failure rates of this product appear to be very high! I bought one, which failed in the first month. Company shipped another, which never worked properly. I returned in 12/05 & have never received a replacement!

Avoid this product & company!

Some of the other reviewers complained of poor audio quality, and if you just start using the player straight out of the box, I agree, there's a lot of distortion. But after my adjustments, the player has pretty good audio quality - here's what you do. Play a song that has a lot of distortion. From the Main Menu, go to Equalizer > 5 band Equalizer. Adjust the levels until there's no distortion. It takes a bit of fiddling but I think 2 minutes of fiddling is worth it for good audio from a cheap player. ;)

On to the review!

I purchased my Rave-MP Arc (the 2.5Gig version) refurbished for $85. Physically the player is well-designed, the buttons are for the most part clearly labelled and it's not difficult to figure out what they do. Though the player is not metal, it still feels like it's sturdily constructed; I've already dropped it and spilled yogurt on it and it barely skipped a beat. The size of the player is average, about the same size as a candy bar cellphone (though a bit thinner.) This is something you can slip in your pocket easily, unless you wear very tight pants. ;) Since this is a hard drive player, I wouldn't expect it to stand up to strenuous activities like jogging or mountain biking, but so far it's done fine for me with walking and exercise biking.

I've yet to look at the manual. The menu layout and operation of the player is very intuitive and easy to use. I got a little confused on some parts but quickly figured it out. The battery life is also excellent so far - I use this during my 8 hour work day (usually listening for 4 or 5 hours) and I've never drained the battery below 50%. Transferring files is a snap too, I just use it as a flash drive and drag-and-drop to the player from my computer. Indexing takes a bit of time, but it's nothing too bad.

I did take a star off for the earphones. This player came with two sets and both aren't that great. The big 70s style ones were comfortable, but also broken, they distort the sound horribly. The earbud style ones aren't that comfortable, but they are fairly good with the sound. Expect to invest in a quality pair of headphones. As for other accessories, the belt clip is a little bulky but entirely usable. The arm band is very handy when exercising too.

Overall so far, I find this to be an excellent deal for my money so far. It holds a lot, is pretty durable, has good audio quality (after adjustment), a long battery life for a hard drive player, and is easy to use. I'd recommend this player to anyone who likes to listen to music at work, on trips, or while doing light exercising. Now I get to see how well it stands the test of time. :)

Dec 20: After 2 plus months of owning the player I can safely say I was not disappointed with my purchase. The battery life is still stable and long, and the player still works fine. The only problems I've had so far are: it will lock up if you try to record when the drive is full (there is a reset button to fix this.) Also, the protective plastic over the player screen is NOT airtight (also not dust tight!) so my screen is looking quite dusty and I have no immediate way to clean it. I'm looking into how to clean it off now! But overall, I still feel it's a good investment, especially if you can get it refurbished or used.

Feb 2, 2006: Still working! And the battery is holding up fine, I usually get 8 hours of it easily. I still haven't figured out how to go about cleaning it... but I haven't really tried. ;>

November 16, 2006: Over a year later and it's still working. I use it about 4 times a week when I exercise now, and I find I have to recharge... maybe once every 2 weeks. So the battery is still holding up well. The buttons are getting a little sticky, but I suspect that may be because I do bad things like leave it in a freezing car overnight. Considering the amount of torture this thing gets, it's holding up remarkably well.

Do not buy this product, and at this point would not recommend anything from go-video. The latter based on their poor customer support. Had for about 4 months, and battery died. Believe it or not a "bug" appears on the display!!!! Creepy!!! Apparently a known issue with product as they stated they were going to repair even though out of warranty. Sent in 12/05, and haven't seen since!! Calls and emails to customer service result in nothing but lip service or "state you problem again" after numerous previous contacts WITH their return auth #!
When it was working? Pretty poor, horrible sound (well documented), and very limited flexibility both in playback and song compliations. There has NEVER been a firmware update since 5/05. Think they realize a poorly designed/manuf product and don't want to commit any more resources too....Even at $100 for 5G back then - total waste of money...

Pros: Cheap for the capacity

Cons: poor audio quality, browsing songs stops currently playing music, no support for playlists, no firmware updates, short warranty

customer service has promised firmware updates due by the end of the month for 3 consecutive months and still hasn't produced a firmware update to fix any of the shortcomings of this unit. spend the extra money and get an ipod mini.

90 days is all govideo feels confident in warranting their products. I've waited over 90 days for promised firmware updates from govideo to fix all the shortcomings of this product, now i'm out of warranty. stay away from govideo.

I know this might not be the case for all of the RAVE products, but I think before buying, people should know of other expereces. When I got this player for Christmas I was thrilled, sound wasnt the best but I was thrilled. But 2 months later the screen would no longer display the song information, or any other info. My friends did the exact same, and this was brought on by no fault of ours.
Though RAVE was vary understanding, and gave us 100% of credit back for the player, and made it easy to return.

In short, their is noting MP about this mp3 player. It is absolutely awful (no good). Buying it is a waste of money. It freezes like every 2 minute. In short, don't buy it; it might be cheap, buy you will not like the performance. And to make the story worse, Rave does not have any customer support. I got no response when i called them. Email too, they offered no help either

The only thing good about the player is that it comes with a free hear phone